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Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion (HERE THERE BE SPOILERS)

So....?


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The movie feels strangely small at times. Abrams likes to advance the story so quickly, that you don't get a sense of travel time. It makes what's supposed to be a vast galaxy feel smaller than it should be.

I still enjoyed it overall, but I'm glad Abrams won't be directing any more of these (hopefully).

Hyperspace was always kind of fast in Star Wars, and the Millennium Falcon was suppose to be really fast.
 
Here's one of those things I only noticed on the third time around:

Greg Grunberg is responsible for the Resistance hidden base being discovered by the First Order! They mention tracking a Resistance scout back to the base... and in the next scene at the big rebel briefing, they mention it was Snap Wexley who just came back from a scout run of the Starkiller Base.

Also, I heard Luke at the end of Rey's vision but I couldn't tell what he said, I think it was like an anguished cry similar to when he got electrocuted by Palpatine.
 
I thought that was his "Nooo!" on learning who his father was just after losing that lightsaber.
 
Honestly the only part that felt rushed to me, travel wise, was the final trip to Luke's planet. They build it up as this giant, movie-long mystery, Rey then has this big farewell scene with Leia... and then she and Chewie have barely even gotten settled in their Falcon seats before boom, they're already at the planet.

At the very least it would have been nice to see them have to fly past a couple moons or maneuver through an asteroid belt or something first.
 
Here's something else I just found out; Snap Wexley, Greg Grunberg's character, is the teenage boy in the Aftermath novel! He was called Temmin in the book which is why I didn't have the slightest clue before now.
 
Hyperspace was always kind of fast in Star Wars, and the Millennium Falcon was suppose to be really fast.
Yeah, that's not what I mean though.

Abrams makes this galaxy feel like it exists in a closet. For a variety of reasons, but the lack of any sort of travel of time is just one of them.

STID sort of felt the same way.
 
JJ Abrams has had an issue with the size of the galaxy, and the length of time it takes for a vehicle to travel from point A to point B, since the first of the new Star Trek films.

In my third viewing, I saw the Republic fleet in orbit of Hosnien Prime.

And, I spoke of a jarring effect when Han Solo and Leia Organa are speaking about their son. I know now why it feel jarring - the shot went from medium distance to close-up with no transition. It was a bad edit.
 
JJ Abrams has had an issue with the size of the galaxy, and the length of time it takes for a vehicle to travel from point A to point B, since the first of the new Star Trek films.

Unlike Star Trek, Star Wars travel does not seem to depend on distance but on other "navigational" factors. Ships can seemingly travel instantaneously (within hours) from one end of the galaxy to the other as long as they can plot the course.

Well traveled paths or documented routes can be traveled easily but there still seems much about the galaxy that is unknown and requires exploration.

For all we know, Dagobah is only a few light years from Coruscant but since no one has ever really traveled there the route is unknown. (Don't pull up a map of the galaxy--it is only an example.)

That is the whole basis of Han making his run in 12 parsecs. He navigates a dangerous path through "light speed" that reduces the distance between point A and point B.
 
Speaking of travel time, I was really thrown reading the Battlefront novel today. They talked about how the Empire already knows we're here, they could send a Star Destroyer here in a couple days. But they already knew you're there, why would it take 1-2 days for a Destroyer to arrive?
 
A Star Destroyer isn't as fast as the Millennium Falcon?

Also they might assume that a route to there location from the nearest known Imperial fleet positions was not near a known route, so it would take longer.
 
... Like Poe a lot more than I thought. Reminded me a lot of Wedge from the X-Wing novel series, so that was a big plus...

I always liked the Wedge stories, in games too.
... If I recall correctly, in the Dark Nest Trilogy Luke even used Force Lightning, and he started prematurely aging, and he realized he was heading down the wrong path and stopped.

I've heard convincing arguments that Luke simply uses the Dark side of the force (for good reasons). In TESB, Luke force chokes a Gamorrean as he enters Jaba's palace.

That's in ROTJ. :p

Kor

Oh yeah. Oops.
 
And, I spoke of a jarring effect when Han Solo and Leia Organa are speaking about their son. I know now why it feel jarring - the shot went from medium distance to close-up with no transition. It was a bad edit.
What do you mean? What kind of "transition" did you expect? A dissolve?
 
So did anyone have specific "small touches" that they liked? On a visual level, I think J. J. did a pretty good job overall, and I think my personal favorite was Rey's "magic" bread. It's a tiny few seconds but it's a great effect.

Two stormtroopers are chatting in the Starkiller base and one of them says "Have you seen the T-17?" which is the (almost) exact conversation the stormtroopers are having in ANH when Obi-Wan disables the tractor beam "Have you seen the T-16?"
 
The movie feels strangely small at times. Abrams likes to advance the story so quickly, that you don't get a sense of travel time. It makes what's supposed to be a vast galaxy feel smaller than it should be.

I still enjoyed it overall, but I'm glad Abrams won't be directing any more of these (hopefully).

Yeup. JJ's style seems more like little vignettes of action, bookend by dialogue, then stitching them together to make a larger movie. Very compressed, very modern, very web-series like.

I got to the end of the movie, twice, and both times it didn't feel like a two hour movie.

Anyone else feel that that music was lacking? That it was to thin and not grand enough in the places it needed to be?
 
Yeup. JJ's style seems more like little vignettes of action, bookend by dialogue, then stitching them together to make a larger movie. Very compressed, very modern, very web-series like.
I'd prefer if he'd let his movies breed from time to time. Let the audience soak in all the stuff that's going on.

Also, Dan Mindel's cinematography tends to get a bit tiresome after a while, with all those closeups.
 
Anyone else feel that that music was lacking? That it was to thin and not grand enough in the places it needed to be?

Yes, I thought the exact same thing. It's the weakest score I've ever heard in a SW film. It's more in the background also, which may be why it's perceived as less grand.

In general, I thought the audio mix in TFA was a little strange. There's scenes where it felt like certain sound FX were either too far in the background, or missing all together.

The pilot cockpit shots were missing that background whistling noise I'm accustomed to hearing from seeing the original trilogy a zillion times. It sort of through me off.
 
Unlike Star Trek, Star Wars travel does not seem to depend on distance but on other "navigational" factors. Ships can seemingly travel instantaneously (within hours) from one end of the galaxy to the other as long as they can plot the course.

Star Wars hyperspace travel speeds have always been very, very fast. JJ's habit of making space seem too small manifests itself in a different way: people standing on Takodana's surface can look up at the sky and see the Starkiller destroying the Hosnian system. Just like Spock could see the destruction of Vulcan from the surface of Delta Vega.
 
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